It is not often you see a couple of characters dashing around the Bronx dressed in Kiplingesque explorers’ outfits. But last summer, two actors named Joey Rizzolo and Christopher Borg pulled on their aviator goggles and straightened their bow ties and set off on an expedition.

The two explorers looked as if they were bound for Cairo or Casablanca to unearth some ancient tomb. In fact, they set their course for Storage Deluxe in Co-op City, which charges a monthly fee for a walk-in storage space about the size of a large elevator.

The two dramatists turned their adventure into a play called “Locker 4173b,” produced by their performance collective, the New York Neo-Futurists. The comic yet poignant play — which they bill as “an urban archaeological adventure” — is based on the contents of two storage lockers they bought at an auction at Storage Deluxe in July.

This archaeological-dramaturgical escapade started after Mr. Rizzolo and Mr. Borg heard about the auctions, which take place after renters fall behind on their payments. Management seizes the lockers and puts their contents up for sale.

Eager for some real-life fodder for their next play, the two actors attended an auction at Storage Deluxe hoping to buy a container full of old items that might unfold a sweeping romantic tale stretching back generations. But they found themselves outbid by the many professional buyers willing to pay large sums for valuable antiques.

Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe items from both lockers, labeled and packed in wooden crates, are treated as artifacts and hauled onstage for display, examination and discussion.

The cash-poor pair wound up purchasing two of the most inexpensive lots — $110 for Locker 4173B, belonging to a working-class couple with three children; and $5 for Locker 2227, which was rented by a mentally unstable homeless woman who perhaps hoped to make it her residence. The first locker was chock full of everyday family possessions, but the second locker contained only a pair of boots and leg warmers, two smallish bags and a purple umbrella.

Still, it was the second locker that perhaps provided a more definitive explanation of itself. One of the bags contained a journal in which the woman outlined, in very colorful language and style, her hard-knock past and her plans to salvage her life. Some of the best parts of the play are the verbatim reading of passages of her journal.

The two men cataloged more than 1,500 items from the lockers, itemized them in a spreadsheet, and tried to piece them together to figure out who their former owners were, and what had happened to them. The play is their account of the entire process. They wrote it, and cast themselves as the two main characters: raiders of the lost lives.

The production is at a Chelsea performance space called the Monkey, on the 12th floor of 37 West 26th Street. Previews run through Monday, and the regular run continues through May 21, with tickets for all dates available online via www.nynf.org.

The production alternates between the two lockers. The items, labeled and packed in wooden crates, are treated as artifacts and hauled onstage for display and examination and discussion. The production is dense with witty dialogue and comedic banter and the two actors play their dashing adventurer roles to the hilt. They deliver witty songs and at times drift into the characters of these mysterious people whose items they are examining.

The homeless woman — whose name is India — apparently first rented her locker in March 2010, attracted by the offer of one month’s free rent. When India was unable to pay, her locker was seized in July. Her journal and paperwork describe a sad slide in which she seems to have stopped taking her medication while pregnant and wound up in Montefiore Hospital’s psychiatric ward with her child placed into foster care.

In the journal, she plans to “get my money right” and go through the bureaucratic steps to regain her child. She reminds herself that, “You are the queen” and vows to get away from the psychiatric staff: “I won’t let them get into my head.”

Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe second locker contained, among other things, boots, leg warmers and a purple umbrella.

She also outlines her plans to move into the storage locker and buy herself a laptop and a BlackBerry and some furniture.

The production avoids divulging the last names of its real-life muses — “We wanted to maintain the dignity of our subjects,” Mr. Rizzolo said — but they do use first names and display photographs, documents and personal possessions.

The two actors undergo plenty of soul searching and hand wringing onstage over the ethics of turning the lives of the less fortunate into entertainment.

Are they any better than the professional auction buyers whom they call plunderers and mercenaries? And should they really be referring in the past tense to these locker tenants? Are they still alive? Would they ever find out they are the basis of a play that they will likely never hear about? (The creators of “Locker 4173b” say that, so far, they have resisted the impulse to contact the previous owners of the belongings.)

Mr. Rizzolo wonders onstage if it is right to take the attitude that, “We’ll return your things as soon as we’re done parading your life in front of strangers?”

The second locker contains the possessions of a family clearly beset with problems. The mother, Priscilla, is a home health aide, who lives with her husband, Luis, and their three children in Co-op City. It is unclear why the family rented the locker. The belongings are carefully packed, including personal items belonging to the mother, Priscilla: makeup, a sports bra, high-heeled shoes, cassette tapes and a nurse’s uniform.

Her husband, Luis, a courier who played music as D.J. Big Beatz, dabbled in rap and left behind some lyrics, which get a reprise by Mr. Rizzolo, with Mr. Borg beat-boxing with his mouth. We see Luis’s red Nike headband, his striped bathrobe and his Penthouse magazine. We learn that he was paying child support for a son he had from a previous relationship, who went to jail.

The couple’s children are named Melissa, Anthony and Lisette. The two girls have scoliosis and are good students, judging by their education documents. The boy has become a discipline problem and has perhaps joined a gang.

Luis’s brother Elliot may have lived with the family. He was an auxiliary police officer and a transit worker. His belongings are stored meticulously in boxes marked: “Elliot, taking with him.” We see his work badges and uniforms. We learn that he earned $50,000 in 2001 and that he drove a blue 1990 Dodge Colt and attended William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx. We learn he had cosmetic surgery to get rid of the dark circles under his eyes from working nights as a train worker.

Inferences are made from the family’s bills, bank statements, collection notices, dirty underwear, personal checks, parking tickets and school notebooks. There are signs that the family was in turmoil. There is a painful note from Luis to Priscilla that perhaps refers to her involvement with another man. There is documentation that Anthony is such a problem that his parents gave him up to a boarding facility.

And then there are rays of hope: a pawn ticket suggesting Luis is buying a charm bracelet for Priscilla — that he still loves her. There is proof of Anthony’s enrollment in a school in Florida, and indications that the family has perhaps moved to Florida as well.

In the end, the two actors conclude they can conclude very little definitively about the former owners of these lockers. In the end, they tell the audience, all this stuff is simply “evidence that they were there.”

Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesChristopher Borg, left and Joey Rizzolo rehearsing their play “Locker 4173b,” based on the contents of two storage lockers they bought at an auction.

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